Improving Pupils' Thinking Skills
Improving Pupils' Thinking Skills
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A practical approach to designing and teaching lessons to enable pupils to think more skilfully
A practical approach to designing and teaching lessons to enable pupils to think more skilfully
Introduction
“Students who thrived in the remote environment during the pandemic, demonstrated competencies such as critical thinking, creativity, resilience, independence as learners, self-regulation, cognitive flexibility and perseverance. These are the attributes that are noted as critical for future employability across industries and geographies.”
From Education Re-imagined (Fullan and Quinn 2020).
Enhancing learning experiences and improving outcomes for learners
At the heart of the Northern Ireland Curriculum lies an explicit emphasis on the development of pupils’ skills and capabilities for lifelong learning and for operating effectively in society. The Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities Framework integrates a range of different types of thinking skills and learning dispositions with collaborative learning (working with others) and independent learning (self-management). This module focuses on developing pupils’ thinking skills.
In most cases, pupils’ thinking is developed informally as they engage in both everyday and school activities. Activating and developing pupils’ thinking skills means designing learning so that pupils will think more skilfully and carefully that they might otherwise do.
Thinking skills are tools that help pupils go beyond the mere acquisition of knowledge and help pupils:
make sense of information,
avoid jumping to conclusions,
develop a deeper understanding,
solve problems creatively and
make informed decisions
Examples of classroom experiences that support these skills are:
questioning,
analysing different perspectives,
seeking out and weighing up evidence,
comparing and contrasting,
developing a line of reasoning.
As Fullan and Quinn outline, these skills are essential to enable pupils to engage and participate fully with blended leaning provision and to help them build up their independence and resilience so they may perform and progress in line with their abilities, especially when separated physically from their teacher and peers.
This module is for teachers of pupils in primary and post-primary schools; it aims to help teachers:
Identify the skills, and in particular the kinds of thinking that you want your pupils to be better at;
Design and teach lessons that will help your pupils to think more skilfully;
Reflect on the impact of your work on your pupils’ thinking and learning; and
Participate in action research and the sharing of innovative practice in the teaching of thinking skills.
The module is made up of 3 presentations, summarised below.
Part 1 - What are the skills and capabilities that our pupils need to demonstrate and develop?
Part 2 - Why teach thinking skills?
Part 3 -How can we develop our pedagogy to support pupils to think more skilfully and carefully?
The slides in the presentations provide a blend of information, activities, practical strategies and further reading. There are Stop and Think opportunities to help you reflect on and process the content and to consider how some of the approaches can be used and adapted to support remote and blended learning.
Teachers can work through the slides, notes, questions and activities individually or in pairs/small groups. The module may take between 2-3 hours depending on the time allocated to reflect and respond as outlined in the presentations.
There are notes attached to most of the slides, which seek to provide clarification and additional information. These notes may be helpful in providing a commentary for a wider audience if the presentation is used as part of a staff development day.
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